Biography

Dr. Diane Jones Allen. Dr. Allen has established a national reputation by bridging practice and research in the areas she cares most deeply about; transportation access, sustainability, and environmental justice. These interests have led to a research and creative output that is remarkable for the holistic integration of academic productivity with successful and meaningful practice.

Dr. Jones has recently added two upcoming publishing ventures to her CV. The first is a book where she is the sole author (Routledge Press) and the second is a book chapter with her mentor at UC Berkley, Randy Hester, and others. Both books are available for pre-order: Lost in the Transit Desert: Race, Transit Access, and Suburban Form, and Design as Democracy: Techniques for Collective Creativity. These books extend her reputation in areas of interest and expertise beyond her articles, conference proceedings, community and national service, and other synergistic activities. They indicate that her commitment to scholarship has actually increased since her caesura from academia in 2014. Transportation equity and “transit deserts” are moving increasingly into the forefront of discussion for planners, landscape architects, and engineers. She has successfully positioned herself nationally as a leader of this movement within the discipline of landscape architecture.

Dr. Jones has a long record of successful practice, including responsibility as a design principal and owner at two firms. This success has been recognized by a national American Society of Landscape Architects award in 2016, her participation in the prestigious award jury for the national ASLA 2017 professional awards in May of 2017, in published interviews, and as a keynote speaker, panelist, and speaker for an accelerating series of important venues. So far in 2017, these include UC Davis, LA Bash in Maryland (national ASLA student conference), and the AIA at Duluth Minnesota. Last year saw five events that ranged from Maryland to Oregon. She is clearly in demand for her unusual and timely interdisciplinary focus on the interplay of transportation and water infrastructure and social and environmental justice

Awards and Honors

Achievements: DesignJones LLC (Austin Allen and Diane Jones Allen) exemplify the leadership qualities recognized by the award. Their empathy, generosity, and commitment to community-led design strategies distinguish them as leaders. They more than most anyone in the profession understand what it means to foster innovation by co-creating sustainable responses with communities for their homes, places, and spaces. And they have taken on the challenging issues of racism and inequities in their work in ways that expand the boundaries of our profession.

Achievements: More than designing structures, landscapes, and urban plans, CED alumni have changed lives, nourished communities, healed and enhanced environments, and enriched the human experience. By their actions and accomplishments, CED alumni have proven that an education focused on environmental and social justice, innovation, and creativity can lead to remarkable outcomes.

Achievements: 2015 marked the centennial of the beginning of the Great Migration. Driven from their homes, Southern communities, and familial bonds by unsatisfactory economic opportunities and Jim Crows laws, more than six million African Americans relocated from the rural South to the cities of the North, Midwest and West between 1915 to 1970. This epic migration of people seeking better opportunities had a huge impact on urban communities in the United States. Without the Great Migration, the Black Metropolis, as we know and understand it, would not exist. I proposed research on Transit Deserts that investigated this important and pivotal aspect of Chicago’s history.

News Articles

This interview was conducted at the ASLA 2016 Annual Meeting in New Orleans.In New Orleans, Diane has been involved in the Lower Ninth Ward, one of the neighborhoods hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina. Ten years after the storm, what has changed? Has anything improved?

Links

Other Activities

2017 Panel Participant

Sept 20172017, ASLA Blue Ribbon Panel on Climate Change

Research and Expertise

Transit Deserts

How can effective public transit service and public policies be provided in “Transit Desert” neighborhoods? Given the demand for transit by residents to meet their daily needs, what public actions, policies, and service delivery methods are necessary to do so? Most American inner urban areas tend to be well served by transit and characterized by mixed used residential and commercial development, densely located structures, and, most important, streets aligned in a grid pattern where local streets easily lead to arterials. In contrast, the outer-urban areas are automobile oriented with uses separated, low density development, and streets laid out in curving patterns where local streets do not easily travel through to arterials. This research explores how the unique form of these areas, in particular the outer urban areas, impacts access to transit. The unique characteristics that make up the areas herein designated as “Transit Desert” including how far one has to walk, the time it takes to access transit, and the urban physiographic conditions encountered, are considered in this work. Building mass transit that can interconnect development and following existing street patterns thereby providing equitable service is a difficult problem, especially if neighborhood form is not conducive to transit. The main objective of transit equity investigated here is to maximize service coverage, so that automobile dependency can be minimized in outer urban areas. There are many direct and indirect factors that contribute to transit access and demand in urban relocation areas. Density is a factor in travel access. Providing infill housing can increase density in a neighborhood, but will have little effect on the street patterns themselves. Increased density also has socioeconomic implications that may be more difficult to address than increasing transit coverage. Neighborhood physiography or neighborhood form and finding transit solutions that can adapt to this form are explored.

The City of the Dead: The Place of Cultural Identity and Environmental Sustainability in the African-American CemeteryLandscape Jrnl. 2011 30:226-240; doi:10.3368/lj.30.2.226

{Journal Article }

Courses

LARC 5395-001SELECTED TOPICS IN LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

This course is an introduction to a range of viewpoints, concepts and characteristics of human behavior which should be taken into consideration when designing the urban environment. Cultural, social and psychological factors will be considered. Various theories and methods of environmental assessment and design will be studied that are based on an understanding of mutually supportive relationships between human beings and their physical environment. Field study will be employed to exercise theories and techniques explored.

This course is an introduction to a range of viewpoints, concepts and characteristics of human behavior which should be taken into consideration when designing the urban environment. Cultural, social and psychological factors will be considered. Various theories and methods of environmental assessment and design will be studied that are based on an understanding of mutually supportive relationships between human beings and their physical environment. Field study will be employed to exercise theories and techniques explored.

This course is an introduction to a range of viewpoints, concepts and characteristics of human behavior which should be taken into consideration when designing the urban environment. Cultural, social and psychological factors will be considered. Various theories and methods of environmental assessment and design will be studied that are based on an understanding of mutually supportive relationships between human beings and their physical environment. Field study will be employed to exercise theories and techniques explored.

This course is an introduction to a range of viewpoints, concepts and characteristics of human behavior which should be taken into consideration when designing the urban environment. Cultural, social and psychological factors will be considered. Various theories and methods of environmental assessment and design will be studied that are based on an understanding of mutually supportive relationships between human beings and their physical environment. Field study will be employed to exercise theories and techniques explored.

LARC 5301 presents the processes and practices of site planning and development, including site inventory, analysis, and assessment of potential building sites. Students examine the natural, cultural, and social systems that affect design decisions, as well as the language and literature of landscape architecture.

Design Practicum is an internship program which includes approved work done in a landscape architects office or one of the related design fields. The purpose of the practicum is to provide students with practical design experience. Students may enroll in LARC 5368 for half-time employment or LARC 5668 for full time employment (based on at least twelve weeks of work).

Design Practicum is an internship program which includes approved work done in a landscape architects office or one of the related design fields. The purpose of the practicum is to provide students with practical design experience. Students may enroll in LARC 5368 for half-time employment or LARC 5668 for full time employment (based on at least twelve weeks of work).